Is Army ready to face mighty Stanford?

WEST POINT — If Army was going to pick a big-time college football program to compete with, Stanford wouldn't be a bad choice.

Sal Interdonato

WEST POINT — If Army was going to pick a big-time college football program to compete with, Stanford wouldn't be a bad choice.

In the classroom.

A comparison of grade-point averages and course selections between the two highly regarded academic schools would be an interesting study.

"Some of those guys have an academic profile that would look good here at West Point," said Army coach Rich Ellerson, whose team hosts Stanford on Saturday.

Ellerson was asked if Stanford and Army are alike.

"Stanford doesn't look like West Point," Ellerson said. "A life in the day of a Stanford student is not a life and a day of a West Point cadet. That's where the similarities end. The SAT scores."

On the football field, it looks like a mismatch.

Stanford, which won the Rose Bowl last season, will be the highest-ranked team to play at Michie Stadium since Dan Marino led No. 8 Pittsburgh to a 24-7 win at West Point on Nov. 13, 1982.

Seven Cardinal players have been drafted in the past two seasons, including quarterback Andrew Luck, the top pick by the Colts in 2012.

Army has six wins since capturing the 2010 Armed Forces Bowl and is coming off a 40-14 loss at Ball State.

"As you know with this football team, we've struggled," Ellerson said. "I wish we were a little further into our schedule before we played this game. I'd rather have built more confidence into our guys to give them a chance to be successful. This is hard on us psychologically, if you will."

Stanford wasn't always a West Coast power. When Ellerson coached at Arizona from 1992-95, Stanford finished at the bottom of the Pac-10 in two of those years, in 1993 and 1994.

"When I was in that league, it was not a great football program," said Ellerson, who also coached at Arizona from 1997-00. "The last half dozen years or so, they've done something differently or they are coaching differently. They are doing something very differently there. It's a very different looking Stanford than I was preparing for a few years ago."

Under athletic director Boo Corrigan, Army is seeking to play more teams that fit the academic profile of West Point.

Army and Stanford will complete a two-game series on Sept. 13, 2014, in Palo Alto, Calif.

Would Army benefit from playing more teams of Stanford's caliber in the future? Would the program benefit from the media exposure no matter the score?

"This makes sense because, like us, they are going to have to present a transcript and a test score that is of a high caliber," Ellerson said. "I'd rather play Stanford than your SEC schools. I think this makes more sense.

"I think we all want to do that. We are going to do that. We just don't want to do it routinely. I think there's a place for that on your schedule. In terms of playing teams like this, yeah, we are going to do this. Sometimes, you are doing it at Ball State and nobody knows it because it just say Ball State. It doesn't say Stanford or Alabama."